Pixar's Hoppers

Pixar’s HOPPERS 🦫 (2026)

The team at Pixar Animation is back with a brand-new original adventure. After blasting off to space last year to help extraterrestrial life in Elio, this time they’re keeping their feet on the ground, touching some grass and saving the animal kingdom—one pond at a time.

HOPPERS introduces Mabel Tanaka, an idealistic college student and devoted animal lover whose protest against a city-approved highway project takes an unexpected turn when her mind is transferred into a lifelike robotic beaver. Granted the ability to communicate directly with the forest’s wildlife, Mabel transforms her one-woman campaign into a spirited alliance with the animal kingdom to save their threatened habitat.

As an animal lover, this movie spoke to my soul.

We’ve seen films like The Wild Robot (2024), which dropped an AI robot into a world of animals, and Zootopia 2 (2025) imagining animals running a human-like society. This one takes a more classic approach: humans and animals sharing the Earth, with one character’s world flipped upside down as they try to save another. Normally I’m all in for Pixar’s loud, colorfully charged worlds, but this stripped-back story still ends up being a genuinely fun experience.

What hit me most was how it let Mabel feel the weight of helplessness, that everything has to get worse before it gets better, a story beat that feels oddly reflective of today’s world. The film also does a fantastic job of balancing its serious, mature themes with genuinely laugh-out-loud moments that won over the adults in the screening. And when you win the adults over in a family movie, you know you’re doing something right.

I also loved the concept of “pond rules”, how the animals accept the food chain as it is, letting the natural order take its course. In some cases, it’s even a full-course meal, which adds a darkly funny edge to the story.

HOPPERS is a spirited tale of environmental activism that underscores the power of community, cooperation, and collective action, reminding us that while everyone has a unique role to play, real progress happens when we come together.

Flap around and find out for yourself when HOPPERS hits theaters March 6th. 

Enjoy!

7/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr45mins

Where: In Theatres March 6th.
Mid-Credit Scene: ✅

The Richmond Reviewer Hoppers Review - March 2nd, 2026.

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